I had a gentleman in my study recently who was being dragged down by some genuine guilt and some false accusations that were being heaped on  him. After chatting for a few minutes about the details of the recent events that had brought about his  spirits low, I began to point him to the cross, both through my  words and literally. I shared the Gospel with him verbally and then pointed to the crucifix hanging on my wall. I then heard one of the most affirming lines I ever heard in my study. The gentleman looked up at the crucifix   More…

(Editor’s Note – The following is from the newsletter of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Nebraska, pastored by  Rev. Clint Poppe. The rest of the story is explained in the introduction that follows.) From the Pastor’s Pen: “Speaking the Truth in Love” Ephesians 4:15 For the past six years, in addition to my call and duties here at Good Shepherd, I have had the privilege to serve the Nebraska District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod as regional vice president and First Vice President of the District. Over a year ago, at one of our regular congregational meetings, I announced   More…

One of our regular readers and commenters is a gentleman by the name of Matthew Mills. He is a layman, in the military, currently viewing the BJS site from Iraq and is quite the accomplished lay theologian. If I am not mistaken, I believe he is an officer in the Air Force. I have had some brief personal e-mail correspondence with him in the past months but that is the extent of his  biography that I know. Those of you who follow the comments section of this website know that Matthew always provides spot-on commentary on the issues. He and   More…

The “Wild Boar Loose in the Forest” blogger points us to a great article on worship written by Prof. Kurt Marquart. It is found in CTQ – Concordia Theological Quarterly, October of 1978 and reprinted below. Speaking of the liturgy, we noticed that the link to this post on the Wild Boar blog was also displayed on another excellent blog Gottesdienst Online. Note that this is a very long document; we debated splitting it up to serialize it but thought it better to read in its entirety. (Warning – this text is scanned from the 1978 CTQ publication, so there   More…

Rick Techlin, a BJS  reader  and a blogger is posting information about the Wisconsin Synod Convention (WELS) convention in Saginaw, Michigan on his blog. We will be posting periodic snippets here on the the BJS site; readers who want more frequent updates may want to visit his blog site or the WELS News Page. The convention runs M-F this week, and as stated below you can view it live on the WELS streaming site. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) biennial convention convenes on Monday, July 27 in Saginaw, Michigan, and runs through Friday, July 31, 2009 A.D. There are   More…

One of our readers took the time to do what  I did not do this morning when I posted the story on the Ablaze intercessory prayer event sponsored by the LCMS. She went to Pastor Bira’s church’s website  and found that they are promoters of something called Theophostic Prayer. Rev. Cliff Bira is one of the LCMS pastors who the synod has called on to  organize the intercessory prayer event  to support President Kieschnick’s Ablaze program. Read this quote from the Theophostic Prayer website and see if you notice any concerns. TPM is Christ Centered Prayer The TPM Basic Training   More…

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports: KIRKWOOD — The second-largest Lutheran denomination in North America opened a museum Sunday at its international headquarters on Kirkwood Road, telling the story of its growth since being founded in 1847 in the St. Louis area by Saxon and German immigrants seeking religious freedom. bullet One can see editions of some of Martin Luther’s books from the mid-1500s; a model of a ship that brought Lutherans to America in 1838; and the carriage that carried the synod’s first president. One can also hear radio broadcasts from the 1940s played on KFUO, the nation’s longest continually   More…

(Pastor Rossow blogs regularly on the site under the title Editor’s Blog and also writes an occasional post, such as this one,  archived on the Regular Columns page under the title “The LCMS in Her Own Words.”) Here is a quote from today’s online issue of the LCMS Reporter: Synod “intercessors” are being invited to gather in St. Louis Sept. 10-11 for “PRAY 2009,” an inaugural event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (St. Louis Airport) that two pastors initially planning it pray will spark a prayer movement for the church body. Dr. Victor Belton of Decatur, Ga., and Rev. Cliff   More…

Pastor Kurt Hering wrote this back in 2006 on his blog and has since posted it on his newsletter site. Many of the points  are still matters of controversy yet today. Here follows something of a 21st century manifestation of the 95 Theses. I haven’t counted the number of theses in this document, but regardless of number they are intended to be one in spirit with our namesake — the good Dr. Martinus Luther. Please accept them as a call to wrestle with ourselves and rejoice in our distinct and common identity.

One of my very favorite non-Lutheran blogs is Internet Monk. If you don’t already check it out, I highly recommend it. And now’s as good a time as any — there’s an interview of Higher Things’ Rev. William Cwirla. It’s all about Higher Things conferences — who, what, when, where, why. Here’s a sample:

This last week I was sent  a wonderful e-mail. Richard Sutis, one of the Brothers of John the Steadfast in our chapter at Bethany Lutheran in Naperville, Illinois wrote me to let me know that he would open his home for a chapter get-together in the next few weeks. He also offered to pay the annual dues for five  pastors and teachers that he has been served by in his years as a Lutheran. What a wonderful gift! We encourage others to do the same. If you are interested in starting a chapter of the Brothers send me an e-mail   More…

(Rev. Otten other posts are archived on our Regular Columns page under the title “Steadfast Lessons from the Past.”) She was the only church and school secretary of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Brookfield, Illinois, for 16 years. During her years as secretary the congregation was well over a thousand souls. She worked only three days a week. She was the mother of five, all of whom were enrolled at St. Paul school. She worked with a manual typewriter, a mimeograph machine, (the functioning of which would take a page to explain), a primitive addressograph, and without anything like a   More…

(Pastor Rob Jarvis is involved with the CLCC group. Like BJS they seek to equip laymen to know and support Confessional Lutheranism. CLCC posts are archived on the Regular Columns page of this website.) Last time we talked about the need to start thinking about the “mutual conversation and consolation of brethen” in our own congregations. What follows then are a couple ideas to “break the ice.” I would like to acknowledge the members of the MNNFaithful e-mail list, because they provided several of these ideas from a discussion they were having earlier. You will note as you are reading   More…

So the husband has flu and it is, apparently, swine flu. It makes me wonder how LCMS congregations have historically handled influenza outbreaks vis-a-vis communion. Anyone know?

No really! I’m rather surprised the Board for Communications Services is hiring during this period of financial trouble but they just sent out a notice that they’re looking for someone to write press releases and otherwise support the director of Public Affairs and Media Relations. They certainly do need public relations help, but they could probably get it just by not making numerous PR disasters!